


karmic years

by LadySpearWife



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: 2019 Formula 1 Season, Character Study, Drama, Ferrari lore, Gen, M/M, Unresolved Emotional Tension, can be read as shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:40:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23017171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySpearWife/pseuds/LadySpearWife
Summary: Sebastian, Charles, and the fine art of liking someone and hating their guts at the same time. It's almost a threesome.
Relationships: Charles Leclerc & Sebastian Vettel, Charles Leclerc/Sebastian Vettel
Comments: 10
Kudos: 58





	karmic years

I.

God, the kid’s unusually mild.

Sebastian has been doing this for more than a decade. He knows difference between fast pilots and _good_ pilots. Dozens of quick drivers come and go each year, burning to embers without the spine to last in this sport. Charles is unnervingly polite and sweet and delicate, with a lingering, vaguely sad youth that makes him disturbing to look at. Anyway, it’s a little comical, how out of place he looks in Maranello.

 _Day one_ , Sebastian thinks sardonically, _let’s see how long he lasts before it gets too much_. It’s a teammate ritual of his. They get him or he gets them. Charles, all porcelain and hype and sob stories, is just – well, he’s been doing this for too long and has outlived more quick pilots than not. Sometimes, it has to fall down to goring each other out on track and outside it. Formula 1 wouldn’t be itself without leaving the corpses of talented boys at tracksides. Ferrari wouldn’t be Ferrari without picking its kings.

Long hail Michael, of course.

“Hey, Seb,” he greets, smiling a sheepish smile and curling the words with that damp accent of his. Not even slightly concerned about hiding his excitement.

“Charles.” Sebastian hugs him; a warm reception as expected.

Maranello has been his kingdom for a while, and he plays the role dutifully, giving him the patronizing attention of a man who has very little still to prove in this piranha pond. The kid beams at him, amicable and unburdened, like they’ll have even footing in competing here. Of course, Sebastian has learned his lesson of not overlooking silly boys who look out of place in the adult table – but Charles, polite and coy and more model than pilot, doesn’t seem to have half of the guts Daniel had back then.

And well, look at where Daniel is now.

II.

They have their asses and expectations handed to them in Melbourne in a neat package of P3 and P5. Sebastian _seethes_ at their lack of pace; Charles doesn’t.

( _The show must go on_ , he thinks, watching this world champion lose his poise.)

III.

Bahrain is a shitshow of epic proportions.

Sebastian snorts at their frenetic praise dedicated to poor little Charles, who merely smiles with equal grace and sadness at his tragedy. He handles Lewis’ incessant compliments and attempts at cheering him up better than Sebastian ever did. Anywhere else, it’d be fairly unimportant, how the kid humors the fanciful idiosyncrasies of their current king, if it didn’t betray the tight set of his jaw and his raised chin. Like he knows this is defeat but not quite, like he knows he got more than 15 points here.

It’s a concerning look on him, sweet Charles whose permanent state seems to be coy, adorable confusion and unfaltering politeness. Sebastian has his own wounds to lick, though – if the kid wants to play tough, it’s none of his concerns.

Said kid materializes himself by his side at debrief, nothing but a faint tiredness showing on his face. Sebastian is half satisfied and half infuriated – good, because he has no comfort to give in this shitshow of a race; equally bad, because he doesn’t want to commiserate their uneven sorrows with him. Charles smiles, though, bitter and darkly amused, like this is a particularly morbid corpse that he finds funny for some reason or another. Sebastian blinks, almost faltering in his own stubbornness and asking _what_.

“It’s gonna be a long season,” Charles says and detaches himself from his side.

IV.

Small, blistering comforts aside – Germany, he thinks, with a smile –, by Hungary Sebastian has to admit, it’s going to be a fucking endless, winless season.

It’s desperate enough to sharpen their edges. Between Bahrain, Austria and Canada, they’re holding too many grudges to not grow a little less careful with their respective tongues. Sebastian gets increasingly less surprised by Charles’ aimless temper – what’s the point in competing against each other if this season has been lost for more than a while now? He gets progressively less surprised by Mercedes getting 1-2 in every race as well. Cheers to a year of little successes it’ll be by Abu Dhabi, it seems.

V.

Except it’s not winless.

Spa is – it’s bloody awful. Sebastian had entertained the thoughts of never, ever having to stand shoulder to shoulder in a circle again, eyeing the helmet of a kid whose death sentence was seven hundred kilos of carbon fiber. It’s just bloody awful.

Charles had been terrifyingly, disturbingly still at the news. And then he bawled his eyes out in the middle of the garage. And then he put himself together and ran to find Pierre. Sebastian hugged him briefly somewhere in between numbness and panic, thinking _oh fuck_ in a loop of unwanted memories. They’re not supposed to die in the track. It should be a thing from the gory 80s, before this sport was safe.

He puts himself in the line for the kid for a number of reasons – he’s not going to win it with those tires, so he might as well give the team some joy in this victory drought turned nightmare of a race. And besides, there’re few people who deserve to be up there in Spa like this. It’s unlikely Pierre will make it in Toro Rosso, so Sebastian settles for the second best and watches the other Ferrari speed away from him.

That P4 can be put as a mistake of strategy, and the week can end in this quiet note. At least Charles knows enough to invite him for the picture, to beam up at him like it’s dreamy pre-season again and they don’t know each other as a little more cutting than this. For once, Sebastian doesn’t resent him for winning. He lets the kid have his spotlight, his hollow comfort. In proportionate amounts of _almost_ victories, he’s outranked anyway – Bahrain and Austria to his Canada. It’s still a whole lot of disappointment to be shared in a team. He sighs. Better leave Spa the soonest.

VI.

Fuck all he ever said, Sebastian _does_ resent Charles for winning.

Monza thrums with satisfaction and pride and savage frenzy, flags high and _Fratelli d’Italia_ echoing in his chest. The very air seems to be cheering and chanting the kid’s name. Here, speed holds a sacred weight – and for Ferrari, it’s winning or bleak shame. He has his triumphs there, 2013 and 2011 and beautiful 2008, but in this car, in this team, none of those mean, not even to himself. Those straights and corners have more to say on how he failed to make the rabid Tifosi proud than on how his highs.

 _Alonso, Schumacher, Barichello, Berger, Shecketer, Regazzoni, Scarfioti, Hill and Ascari_ , he intones, as the world seems to quake with cheers. Sebastian doesn’t want to add Charles to the list before his own name. The home crowd makes a point of doing this for him, though, chanting _Olé Olé Leclerc_ with fervid adoration. He indulges into being bitter in the garage, thinking of qualifying and cheating and – well, if the kid had to win, he’d rather to be merely outshined instead of absolutely demolished.

There’s no sparing a man from a tragedy of his own making. The team is burning with rash joy. Sebastian doesn’t allow himself to choke their happiness, even if he has to look at their little prince and remember his stinging, shameful P13 finish.

VII.

Singapore is everything he dreamed this season would be when the car sang under them in winter testing. At the top step of the podium, with the ache that only comes from the toughest race in the calendar, Sebastian knows this is his redemption.

(Charles knows the world shouldn’t be seeing his blatant disappointment, ringing with the same bitterness of _let Sebastian by_ and a half season of being swept under the rug. He holds the white flag in the podium but doesn’t even notice what it says there; it means nothing to his burning anger. Everyone must know this is no peace offering between them, except for the fact the team lets him be for a while after it. Xavi, _bless him_ , just says to find a better way of protesting next time. Fair is fair).

VIII.

“Do _not_ disobey team orders, Sebastian,” Mattia says, not unkindly, eyeing him tiredly. “We have enough trouble without disagreements and all those rumors.”

“Did you tell him the same?” He asks to ask, has to defend himself.

It’s all very empty bark, though. In the end, Charles ended up on the podium, half outshined by the glint of yet another Mercedes victory, but still higher than himself, nursing a retirement. For the second time in two races, Ferrari has to force them to sit face to face. Sebastian thinks all those journalists would have a field day with how they hold unsubtle poison in their mouths. Still, they _do_ have bigger problems than strategies that they don’t agree with – it’s the same unflattering sentiment of fighting against piling errors that led them to liking each other in first place, race-hatred put aside.

IX.

In another universe, the next tree races aren’t a mocking repeat of the start of the year. They eat dust, and the mistakes keep piling up. Charles’ humor keeps getting sharper. Sebastian almost forgets he’s bastard under the amusing false coyness and the cutting wit. Mercedes and Lewis win, and it doesn’t surprise anyone.

X.

“Did you see F1 Twitter?” Charles says absentmindedly, sprawling on the couch in Sebastian’s driver room. It’s pointless chatter – he probably knows about his sentiments towards Twitter and following the insistent barking of the media.

Charles, because he’s a relentless little prick masked under a damp accent and a dimpled smile, shows him anyway. _Top 10 Teammate Collisions in F1_ , and it’s an unflattering picture of his Red Bull days. Mark again, as if their infighting proves Sebastian is a dick that can’t be redeemed or something in the same tone. Charles is smiling languidly. He smiles like he knows something, like this pleases him. It can’t, considering that his chance of P3 in the championship are all but ruined now.

“Statements,” he hums.

“Do you think _I_ crashed into _you_?” Sebastian asks, feigning indignance. He knows perfectly where this conversation is headed before it even goes somewhere.

“Absolutely.” _Prick_.

“You know what I think.”

Charles laughs, a full laugh that he isn’t expecting just after their most shameful DNF thus far. He looks more relaxed than someone in their position should be. All things considered, he has more to care about. “It’s fun, how multiple truths can be.”

XI.

It’s probably about their versions of the crash, so divergent it gets comical, but Sebastian clings onto those words, searching for meaning. He looks everywhere for it now, considering this bitch of a season and his P5 in the championship. Charles, ever more magnanimous and far luckier, has no grudges to commiserate and share with him in Abu Dhabi, considering his podium and overall stellar year – Sebastian holds his unremarkable race close to his chest and watches them narrate this top 3 with more delight than needed for such a boring track, for such a predictable bunch of weekends.

Hamilton, Verstappen, Leclerc. The champion and the kings in the making. He’s nowhere near them, far from their praise and their looks and their admiration. Sebastian knows a thing or two about egomaniac winners and kids with too much disregard.

 _Game on_ , he thinks, bitter and burning – 2020 is more tangible than his disappointment. Charles is not so pleasant anymore. The skin of a delicate kid remains unchanged, but he grins to Sebastian with teeth, two neat rows that have dismembered competition in less important Formulae and are now being sharpened to eat challengers’ flesh in F1. He refuses to be swallowed by him, flaming as he might be.

Sebastian has outlived more teammates than Charles has of years there.

**Author's Note:**

> what's this you may ask? this is me ignoring all the ferrari engine shitshow and focusing on the fun part. pilot relationships. game on dudes 2020 season is coming. i hope you liked this!


End file.
